The Audio Diaries of Albert Clayton
by Amna Umen
Summary: Story of Albert Clayton. A Bio Physicist in Rapture before it's downfall. Follows the history of Rapture as a parallel. Rated T for violence/language. Please comment and critique, i'm very receptive and am always looking to improve. Thank you for reading.


**Tuesday, July 9****th****, 1957  
1:37 PM  
Mercury Suites, Olympus Heights, Rapture**

Rapture…my heaven…my laboratory…my thriving ground. I am Albert Clayton and I am the lead biophysicist on the new speed plasmid. I came to Rapture in the early parts of this year. And since then I have been deep in my research to find a way to speed up man's basic movements. Certain men can move and react faster than others, and certain men of the same stature are as sluggish as an ADAM sea slug. That is my purpose here in Rapture, to make good men faster. I am fortunate enough to be a part of the regal upper class here and I am thankful, for I have seen the cretins that inhabit the lower depth of this underwater Heaven. It is truly sad how low some people can fall. I hear that people are living in the streets of the Farmer's Market. And…my wife Doris was walking through Arcadia when all of a sudden she was almost mugged by what seemed to be a normal person! She got away thanks to her sleep plasmid, which knocked her assailant right out. But still it is truly disturbing to think we share the same city with these pathetic wastes of precious oxygen. I digress though, I must return to my research, the building phase begins in a week.

**Wednesday, August 7****th****, 1957  
7:45 AM  
Medical Pavilion, Rapture**

Nearly a month has passed since my last journal entry, and progress has been very slow on the speed plasmid. But today our first test is going to be done on a subject…A young boy named Michael. He is a smart boy, but he has the unfortunate luck to be born to one of _those_ people. And in order to afford his schooling his mother must submit her own son to being a genetic test dog. Testing is set to be start at 8:15 AM and from my office right now I can see Michael being strapped onto the table by that nut job Steinman. The boy looks frightened half to death, and for good reason, Steinman's train left station long ago. The boy is ready to be injected with the test plasmid, it is time to try and play god.

**Wednesday, August 7****th****, 1957  
5:19 PM  
Mercury Suites, Olympus Heights, Rapture**

Jean Rostand once said "Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men." This man could not have been more right…today I played god with a little boys' genetic structure…and now he is dead. The boy's entire DNA structure was rewritten with the speed plasmid and therefore he also aged at an accelerated rate. I watched an 8 year old boy go through his entire life span in the course of an hour…his mother was obviously broken, she had to be carried away from the test chamber. But even after the door to the chamber door was shut, her cries and curses could still be heard as if the very walls themselves were casting their disapprovals down on me. The weight of the whole incident didn't set in until I saw Steinman take the body to his area. About the experiment though, I am shocked, where could I have gone wrong? I put more research into this project than any other in my lifetime. And it failed…Rostand is right, we should not play god before we can play our part as a human. I now retire to my study to drown away my failure with a bottle of Merlot.

**Monday, August 12****th****, 1957  
11:06 AM  
Outside the Office of Andrew Ryan, Hephaestus, Rapture**

I leave all my friends…I come down here to this…underwater hell! And this is the thanks I get! My funding for the speed plasmid project was cut by the head bastard himself, I'm no longer of use to Ryan so I've been released from his company. I've been given until the end of the month to get out of my suite.I hear that Frank Fontaine is looking for as many biophysicists as he can get to try and rival that of Ryan Industries. I was previously being paid to keep my mouth shut about all of Ryan's secrets…but not anymore. I'll go over to Fontaine's side; he will pay dearly for my secrets, and who knows maybe someday I will rise above both Ryan and Fontaine. Rapture could be mine! Mine I tell you!!

**Sunday, September 1****st****, 1957  
3:52 PM  
Artemis Suites, Apollo Square, Rapture**

Doris and I have just finished getting moved into our new suite. This place is…less than appealing. We are surrounded by people of the working and lower class of Rapture. Fontaine has agreed to hire me, but I am only going to be a part of a team, not the leader. I guess that is what to be expected for the great failed lead biophysicist Albert Clayton. People here know of what happened to that boy, no one helped us move in, they just stared at us. Just as well, I don't want their disgusting hands touching our belongings. I start work tomorrow at Fontaine Futuristics, where I will be working on research for a secret device.

**Sunday, November 17****th****, 1957  
1:49 PM  
Twilight Fields, Medical Pavilion, Rapture**

Now they have done it! Those fucking rats have taken the only thing that I held dear to me. On Friday evening my wife was killed…killed innocently when she was walking through the Farmer's Market. One of those _things_ attacked Doris…the witnesses said they heard Doris screaming, and a male saying something about some ADAM. He took just enough time to beat her face enough so I couldn't even recognize her before running off and fading back into the growing population of scum. Oh Doris…my Doris…I'll never forget you…I swear I'll make them pay.

**Wednesday, December 25****th****, 1957  
10:20 PM  
Bathysphere en route to Famer's Market, Rapture**

Religion is banned in this hell hole…yet still some people celebrate Christmas. Maybe they celebrate it to help themselves believe that they are away from this place, maybe they do it out of habit. Whatever reason they do it, most people that matter are inside celebrating in secret. That leaves very few people out on the streets, the only ones that will be in the streets…are those that don't have anywhere else to go. That is where I come in…I have had it with those _things_ polluting my living space. I come bearing only my plasmids, a pistol, and a wrench…I will have my revenge on them, and I will laugh over their dying bodies. Until next time…_"Nec mortem effugere quisquam nec amorem potest."_

**Thursday, December 26****th****, 1957  
11:57 AM  
Wharf, Neptune's Bounty, Rapture**

Nabbed…but I guess when you kill thirteen homeless spliced up morons you are bound to get noticed by the higher-ups. Ryan should be thanking me…even after all that he has done to me…I'm still taking out the trash in his city. I heard they are going to try and pin me for working with Fontaine…they can't do anything since they have no evidence as to me doing any shady business with Fontaine, but they say I'm not leaving this place for a good long while. It's funny, I kill almost 15 "people" and I am being held on account that I work for the enemy of our great ruler.

**Saturday, September 13****th****, 1958  
9:23 AM  
Artemis Suites, Apollo Square, Rapture**

Free at last…Frank Fontaine was killed yesterday and at the decision of Ryan himself I was released from prison. In the darkness of my cell I couldn't see what all the torture and lack of nutrition had done to me, now in the flickering light of my dingy apartment I see the horror that I have become. I now look like the degenerates that are stumbling around like zombies right outside my window.

**Wednesday October 22****nd****, 1958  
12:39 PM  
Apollo Square, Rapture**

Every day Andrew Ryan's frantic search for any "gene traitors" grows. And every day the corpse pile next to the gallows grows even taller. All around Rapture, you can hear talk of a man called Atlas, a man to replace the antithesis to Andrew Ryan that Fontaine was. He is being called the leader of the working class…the scum, and yet I find myself enjoying the idea of him taking down Ryan more and more all the time. Atlas only asks for loyalty and in return he will reciprocate the privilege. Ryan denied me that right, Fontaine followed suit…Atlas has a new recruit.

**Wednesday November 18****th****, 1958  
2:33 AM  
Fontaine Fisheries, Neptune's Bounty, Rapture**

Atlas is truly the messiah of this hell hole. He is a shining white light of hope that we all need to see now. He provides us with the ADAM we all need so very much. He says that there will be more, much more. So long as we are willing to follow his guiding beacon. Too long have we followed the dark light of our "benevolent" ruler…Andrew Ryan. Soon Ryan will get what he has deserved for so long…soon.

**DATE UNKNOWN  
TIME UNKNOWN  
Bathysphere en route to Welcome to Rapture, Rapture**

Time escapes me. I no longer know the next day from the last. I wake up where I lay my head and go about my daily routine of scrounging the area for ADAM. I was even fortunate enough to get my hands on a little sister. Her yellow eyes stared up at me as I forced open her mouth to get the precious sea slug inside her. When I had finally retrieved the prize inside, her small body went limp. The ADAM from that sea slug has long since been used. But Atlas has provided for the meek! He has told us to go to Kashmir Restaurant; he says there will be ADAM there.

**Wednesday December 31****st****, 1958  
TIME UNKNOWN  
Kashmir Restaurant, Welcome to Rapture, Rapture**

Rapture…my hell…my rotting grounds. This city has taken so much from me before, now I feel it has taken the last thing it can take from me. As I speak, I lay on the ground of the wondrous Kashmir Restaurant, dying…dying from a gunshot to the stomach. Atlas led us to this restaurant on none other than New Year's Eve. Ryan was supposed to be here, we were going to finally kill him and Atlas would be our new ruler. But from the shouts of the others around me, that snake Ryan seems to have escaped. Oh Doris, forgive me, I pray that your eyes cannot see what I have become, or the end that I have brought upon myself. I hope when we meet in heaven you will not mistake me for a stranger, but see me for the man I was before this god-damned city. Albert Clayton.


End file.
